Category Archives: Left Wing

More self-justifying nonsense from Tatchell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2In an article in the current issue of Tribune, headed “Free speech is under attack – even from the Left”, Peter Tatchell accuses National Assembly Against Racism chair Lee Jasper of smearing him in a letter to the magazine.

Defending his decision to speak at the “March for Free Expression” rally in Trafalgar Square on 25 March, Tatchell claims, yet again, that “there was no visible BNP presence at the rally. No Union Jack flags. No leaflets or placards attacking Muslims or promoting fascist ideas”.

Reading Tatchell’s denials, you’re reminded of the Vatican scholar in Brecht’s play who, invited by Galileo to observe the movement of the planets through his telescope, shakes his head obstinately and refuses to look. And Tatchell pretends to be a defender of Enlightenment values!

See here for pictures of fascists with Union Jack flags at the Trafalgar Square rally. The literature they are holding is the pamphlet produced by the BNP’s front organisation, Civil Liberty, which was openly distributed to the demonstrators by BNP activists without any interference by the stewards.

Placards featuring reproductions of two of the most blatantly racist of the Danish cartoons – one of the Prophet with a bomb as a turban and another of the Prophet threateningly wielding a large knife with two terrified-looking veiled women cowering behind him – were enthusiastically displayed by the protestors. The latter cartoon was accompanied by the slogan “Religion – hands off women’s life”, implying that the oppression of women is intrinsic to Islam, which of course is precisely the message the caricature sought to convey.

The placards had been brought to the demonstration not by fascists but by Tatchell’s allies in the Worker Communist Party of Iran, whose platform speaker Maryam Namazie provocatively brandished these racist caricatures and urged the crowd to pass them around and do likewise. They were only too happy to oblige.

Tatchell shame over this platform share

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in Tribune, 7 April 2006

It is ironic that, only a week after Peter Tatchell’s article attacking the anti-fascist movement in Tribune, he appeared on the platform at the “Freedom of Expression” rally which had the support of the British National Party and Civil Liberty, whose director is Kevin Scott, a BNP organiser and candidate at the 2005 general election.

I am shocked at Tatchell’s decision to speak on this platform. The BNP exists in the tradition of the Nazis, who not only opposed freedom of speech in the abstract, but exterminated millions of people in the death camps. The BNP denies the reality of the Holocaust and calls for an all-white Britain.

As the secretary of the National Assembly Against Racism, I will unite with everyone who will fight against fascism so that such murderous policies can never be pursued in Britain, even if I profoundly differ with them on many other questions.

Had he attended the Unite Against Fascism conference he would know that this very point was made by almost every speaker, including the Muslim Council of Britain.

Lee Jasper

Liars and their lies

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fascist at MFE“Brett Lock of Outrage is free and easy with accusations of lies, when tilting at the Socialist Action windmill. He would do well to observe that there is little point in lecturing others about your own sins. Notwithstanding his claim that the BNP ‘boycotted’ the rally over ‘free speech’, the BNP’s own site, and its Civil Liberty front, are quite clear. They supported the rally and their members attended. One of the bourgeois liberals that Lock makes mention of, Johann Hari, is quite open about the fact that he marched with fascists.”

Letter from Tony Greenstein in the Weekly Worker, 6 April 2006

See also the letter from Ian Donovan.

Meanwhile, having backed Tatchell’s decision to share a platform with hard right-wingers and racists, Lock continues to defend Outrage’s call for the Muslim Council of Britain to be denied a speaker at the Unite Against Fascism conference in February. There is, Lock explains, no real difference between the MCB and the fascists: “a BNP success in the local elections would be catastrophic, but frankly, given current indicators, the success of an MCB-aligned candidate could be equally disastrous for gay people”.

Lock & Load, 6 April 2006

‘Freedom of speech’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Padraig Reidy of the New Humanist has a go at Denis Fernando, Socialist Action, Respect, the Muslim Association of Britain and Eamonn McCann – all in one short Tribune piece. Needless to say, they’re all guilty of “selling out political ideals to religion”. By which, of course, he means “Islam”.

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Discord cannot deal defeats to fascism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On reflection, perhaps I’ve been a bit harsh on Tribune. Having got hold of a copy of the current issue, I find that it contains an excellent reply to Peter Tatchell by Kirsten Hearn of Regard (even if they manage to mis-spell her name).

Kirsten demolishes Tatchell’s article which rejected anti-fascist work with the Muslim Council of Britain on the grounds that the MCB is homophobic:

“To suggest we jettison the Muslim community from the anti-fascist movement at a time when the fascists are advancing by attacking Muslims is obscene. Today, in Europe, among the many communities being attacked by fascists and the extreme Right, it is possible to find many differences. We must instead seek the basis of common ground and effective opposition. Specifically, the MCB is an umbrella and mainstream body representing more than 450 Muslim organisations and therefore must be central to anti-fascist unity in this country.”

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A ‘swvil-eyed’ attack on Islamophobia Watch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

We appear to have upset the comrades over at Tribune, who have taken exception to our criticisms of their readiness to give a platform to Islamophobes, and to Peter Tatchell in particular (see here).

An item in the magazine’s “John Street” gossip column in the current issue reads: “Tribune has fallen foul of the sane and rational people at Islamophobia Watch. This website, run by self-proclaimed defenders of the faith, claims to expose anti-Islamic sentiments. Journalists, particularly on the Left, who deemed to be the slightest bit anti-Muslim, are subject to self-righteous abuse. More sinisterly, their pictures and details are posted on the website. Tribune‘s latest ‘crime’ was to publish a piece by Peter Tatchell which was critical of Muslim Council of Britain leader Iqbal Sacranie’s swvil-eyed [sic] rantings on homosexuality. Anyone wishing to complain to Islamphobia Watch is advised that they would be wasting their time. It is run by couple of devout democratic centralists and does not countenance debate, disagreements or alternative viewpoints. How very fundamentalist of them.”

You do wonder whether this is an entry for a competition in which journalists were set the task of fitting the maximum number of factual errors into a mere eight sentences.

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Johann Hari on the ‘March for Free Expression’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

johann hariJohann Hari offers his assessment of last Saturday’s protest. “Communists mingled awkwardly with fascists”, he tells us approvingly, though unlike Tatchell he does at least have the honesty to admit that fascists participated in the demonstration.

Hari complains that a member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran was arrested for provocatively brandishing “silly cartoons of the Mohammed that some fundamentalist Muslims have declared to be blasphemous”.

The cartoons in question were in fact the most explicitly racist of the series published by Jyllands-Posten: one of the Prophet with a bomb as a turban and another of a wild-eyed Prophet wielding a knife, with two terrified veiled women cowering behind him – the implication of course being that Muslims are terrorists and misogynists.

We look forward to Hari defending the right of anti-semites to parade round Trafalgar Square with a caricature of a hook-nosed Jew counting money. After all, we have to defend freedom of expression at all costs, don’t we?

Evening Standard, 31 March 2006

‘March for Free Expression’ wash-out

Posted on by Bob Pitt

damp squibLenin’s Tomb has coverage of the pathetic “March for Free Expression” protest in Trafalgar Square this afternoon. It drew some 300 people at its peak and that had fallen to around 150 by the time this would-be mass demonstration reached its rain-soaked end. The hard core who remained gave an enthusiastic reception to Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance when he criticised the supporters of “free speech” who had backed Jyllands-Posten over the cartoons but had failed to give similar support to Nick Griffin and David Irving during the recent court cases against them.

Tatchell and ‘free expression’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tatchell and NamaziePeter Tatchell justifies his decision to support Saturday’s “March for Free Expression”:

“Some of my friends on the left are refusing to take part. Preferring to remain marginal but pure, they object to the involvement of right-wing groups like the Libertarian Alliance and the Freedom Association. I share their distaste for these groups. But my participation on Saturday is based on supporting the statement of principle, not on who else is taking part. I will not let the dubious politics of others dissuade me from supporting what are important, progressive humanitarian values.”

March for Free Expression website, 23 March 2006

Odd, then, that Tatchell argued for banning the Muslim Council of Britain from the Unite Against Fascism conference last month. Presumably it’s OK to form an alliance with racists to oppose Muslims, but out of the question to form an alliance with Muslims to oppose racists.